


the fundamentals of cartography

by Talahui



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Famous/Not Famous, Alternate Universe - Farm/Ranch, Childhood Friends, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Home, Horses, M/M, never a hockey player EJ
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-15
Updated: 2019-08-15
Packaged: 2020-09-01 06:34:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20253742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Talahui/pseuds/Talahui
Summary: There’s no reason for Gabe to keep coming back to TK Ranch, no parents to drag him across the world for a horse ranch holiday, but he does anyways. He and EJ had grown up here, learning to rope and ride and where all the best hiding places were--best friends for the single week they spent together each summer before going back to their very separate lives.It was always the best part of EJ’s year. It still is.





	the fundamentals of cartography

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PeaceSign_MiddleFinger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PeaceSign_MiddleFinger/gifts).

> PeaceSign_MiddleFinger, this wasn't quite what you were looking for, but hopefully it hits enough of the dude ranch prompt to work! Thanks for an excuse to write the pairing that first got me into Avs fic.
> 
> Much creative license came into play here like: not a hockey player EJ and huge & inconsistent fudging of EJ's and Gabe’s ages. I also haven't ridden horses since I was a teenager, so we're working fast and loose with my memories of my grandfather's farm. 
> 
> Big thank you to racheesi for the very last minute beta. Thanks for helping me fill in the holes, fix some word choices, and the most excellent waking up to a scary face shoved in your face story. Also thanks to oflights and olympvs for talking through the very beginning stages of this fic as I was trying to figure out where it was going. 
> 
> & finally--regular rpf disclaimer that this piece of fiction in no way represents the actual human beings and horses whose names and public personas have been borrowed to tell this story. If you found this by googling your name or the name of someone you know, congratulations on an ao3 account. Please hit that back button.

The Rincon Vista hacienda glows under the golden morning light, every exposed beam warmed by the sun. EJ smoothes the comforter on the king size bed with gentle, calloused hands while Paul watches, his eyes sparkling with amusement beneath a worn cowboy hat. 

“The kids can take care of this, y’know,” Paul reminds him. “That is why I make you hire them every year.” 

EJ scoffs, adjusting the placement of the bedside clock by half an inch before joining his boss by the french doors that opened to the back patio. “You trust those dummies to get it right enough to risk it for an NHL star?”

Paul laughs, a deep sound from low in his belly. “Please. Gabriel Landeskog doesn’t count. I’ve known him since the two of you were eight years old and sneaking into my barn at all hours of the night to smuggle the horses snacks. If he wanted to be treated like a star he wouldn’t keep coming back here.”

There’s no reason for Gabe to keep coming back to TK Ranch, no parents to drag him across the world for a horse ranch holiday, but he does anyways. He and EJ had grown up here, learning to rope and ride and where all the best hiding places were--best friends for the single week they spent together each summer before going back to their very separate lives. 

It was always the best part of EJ’s year. It still is.

Even after Gabe had made it to the Show and EJ had built a home in the place he had always been happiest, they still shared that one week in June. Gabe was so consistent EJ could set a clock to his arrival, anticipating the e-mail with his finalized dates for months in advance, but this year had been a surprise. Instead of following his usual pattern, Gabe’s name had popped up early in April, less than a week after the Avalanche had flamed out in the final two games of the season. There had been no victorious Game 82 this year, no triumphant Gabe tackled to the ice by his teammates as the home crowd roared in adoration for their Captain.

That, more than anything, was why EJ needed everything to be perfect. There had been other difficult seasons, seasons much worse than this one, but any grief had been cushioned by time. This season was still fresh, and Gabe had chosen to ease the ache by coming here. If perfect sunrises, early morning trail rides, and Michiko’s cooking were a salve for the disappointing season, then EJ was gonna make damn sure Gabe got it.

Two hundred yards down the road, Cale sprints toward them shouting and waving his arms to get their attention. “The van’s here! Gabriel Landeskog is in the van and it’s--ow fuck!” He stumbles over his own feet in his rush to make it up the hill, bumping into an Appaloosa who huffs haughtily as the kid steadies himself on her mottled back side. “You want me to trust Gabe’s room with that kid,” EJ asks.

“He’d figure it out,” Paul says. “You did.”

_/ _/ _/ _/

Cale vibrates with nervous energy, rocking from heel to toe and back as he watches Newhook attempt to back the ranch’s fifteen passenger van up the narrow driveway that lead to Gabe’s private hacienda.

“Kid, you don’t have to wear that hat,” EJ says, knocking the brand new cowboy hat off of Cale’s head. These newbies came in every year with their boots and hats and crisp button downs not realizing just how much shit EJ was going to make them shovel before he even let them touch his horses.

Cale scrambles for the hat before it hits the ground and clutches it to his chest. “Actually, I do.”

A door slams and Cale’s eyes immediately dart to the van. Newhook has finally managed to park it and is scrambling to the back to start unloading bags.

“Why don’t you go help out the other rookies,” EJ says, shoving Cale toward Newhook and Byram like he isn’t just as desperate to catch a glimpse of Gabe through the tinted windows.

But he’s better than that, so he takes his time walking to the van, pulling his hat--of the non-cowboy variety--low over his eyes to block the sun. Byram struggles to heft an oversized suitcase out of the back and has to get Cale to grab the other side in order to haul it onto the hacienda’s porch next to half a dozen other bags.

“Jesus, Gabe,” EJ says as Gabe, just as blonde and bronze as ever, steps out from behind the vehicle. “Are you planning on moving in? That doesn’t look like a one week bag.”

Gabe grins, all perfect white teeth, and drags him in by the arm for a tight hug. EJ melts into it and doesn’t let go even after Cale shouts, “Way to be cool!” behind Gabe’s back. Whatever. Cale can suck it. He’s been dying to meet Gabe ever since he started working on the ranch this season.

“Do you want the boys to bring your bags in?” Paul asks, ignoring Gabe’s proferred hand and going in for a hug. 

“Nah,” Gabe says, clapping him on the shoulder. “EJ can get ‘em.”

EJ does help haul the bags inside, though Gabe carries more than his fair share. Ever since EJ dislocated his shoulder after being thrown by a spooked horse three winters ago, Gabe has babied him as if EJ wasn’t hefting forty pound saddles on and off his horses about a million times a day. Still, EJ can’t help but complain as he drops the last of the bags at his feet with a heavy thud. “Did you bring the whole gym?”

“Fuck off,” Gabe laughs, digging a clean t-shirt out of one of his duffels before pulling the one he’s wearing over his head by the collar. “I thought you said you’d been working out.”

“I lied. Obviously.” EJ throws himself onto the bed so he doesn’t have to look at Gabe’s shirtless everything. It completely destroys the immaculate bedding that he’d painstakingly tucked and smoothed earlier, but sacrifices have to be made for the sake of his sanity.

Gabe collapses down beside him, crushing EJ’s arm under his back. “It’s just my basic gear.”

EJ scoffs. “I only get you for a week, and you’re gonna steal my time for hockey. Unreal.”

Gabe pinches the skin above EJ’s hip tight enough to no doubt leave a red mark. “Hockey is my job, Erik. Like you wouldn’t bring along one of your horses if you ever decide to finally visit me in Denver.”

He sounds almost wistful, like he actually wants EJ to take him up on the offer of free tickets, but EJ knows he only ever asks to be polite. It’s the same reason he always agrees but never takes him up on it. Their friendship works because it only lives in the 3,200 acres of land that belong to TK Ranch. It wasn’t made to survive on the outside.

Gabe shifts on to his side, his breath warm as it ghosts across EJ’s cheek. “I was actually thinking of doing some of my off-ice training up here--maybe go down and practice with the Roadrunners once their ice is back up.”

That gets EJ’s attention. “You’re staying longer?”

“A month. Maybe more depending on how much training I can actually get done.”

EJ shoots up, taking Gabe with him as his arm catches across the broad expanse of Gabe’s shoulders. “What are you going to do here for a month?” They’ve never had four consecutive weeks together. He’s not even sure he could keep Gabe’s attention that long.

“Hang out with you, dumbass. What else?”

_/ _/ _/ _/

The rookies do a terrible job of tailing them to the stables, neither quiet nor stealthy as they clumsily hide behind stall doors in order to catch a glimpse of--EJ doesn’t know--Gabe touching a hose or something. They’re undoubtedly delighted when a Bay nuzzles Gabe’s shoulder, and he runs his hand gently down the white stripe of her nose in acknowledgement. ”Who’s this new girl?” he asks, and it’s directed at EJ though the sweet lilt in his voice is entirely for the horse.

“Splashy Kisses,” EJ says. It had been one of his better name choices, a stroke of brilliance that had hit like lightning. They couldn’t all be winners--poor Tig Tog--but he’d struck gold with Splash.

“Anyone else I need to know about.”

“Landeskog,” Newhook chirps, only his boots visible behind the stable door. “The horse. Not you. I mean--EJ named a horse after you. Landeskog. He won’t let anybody else ride him.”

“Erik!” Gabe grins, delighted. “You named a horse after me? I’m flattered.”

“You shouldn’t be,” EJ huffs. Newhook was going to pay for that in morning chores. “The only reason no one else rides him is because they can’t. He’s such a pain in the ass that I’m the only one who can put up with him.” He blinks over at Gabe. “Should sound familiar.”

“I don’t think of putting up with you as a sacrifice, buddy.”

EJ throws a damp towel at Gabe’s face, but his reflexes are too good for it to land properly. “Obviously you’re the pain in the ass and I’m the long-suffering saint who puts up with you.”

“Obviously,” Gabe agrees, nudging EJ along to the next stall with a gentle shove. “I guess it wasn’t you who used to sneak into my bunk every night and shove your moon face in front of mine until I woke up and nearly shit myself from having a big fucking scary face in my bed.”

“That definitely didn’t happen.”

“Definitely not,” Gabe nods along amiably, grinning up at EJ so big the corners of his eyes crinkle, and it’s enough to make EJ’s entire body burn. It was bad enough through the grainy window of his computer screen. Up close, Gabe’s smile was unbearable. Maybe if Gabe had lost the front teeth instead of him, EJ’s feelings wouldn’t be in this mess, but here he was with the best hockey smile that wasn’t. Where was the justice?

_/ _/ _/ _/

Over the next few days Gabe easily slips into the rhythms of EJ’s daily life like he belongs there: teasing the rookies and remembering the small details the returning staff had let slip over previous summers. EJ is envious sometimes--not of Gabe, but of his ability to fit into EJ’s world in a way EJ would never fit into his. He’s heard stories about Nate and Tyson and Mikko and never once been able to imagine himself in a room with them. What could they possibly have in common?

“I should always come in April,” Gabe says as they lead the horses back to the stables after a gorgeous sunset ride. The sun had turned the sky brilliant shades of pink and gold before disappearing behind the mountains. “You never said the weather got this good.”

“You have better things to do in April.” EJ unbuckles Landeskog’s saddle and slides it off her sweaty back.

“Not this year,” Gabe says.

“Next year.”

“Maybe.”

Gabe doesn’t sound completely convinced, but he doesn’t take the opening to confide in EJ about the failed season, doesn’t say he wishes he’d fought to come back sooner after the Bishop hit so he’d had more time to drag them into the playoffs, doesn’t say anything.

Every summer Gabe comes back a little different, with a whole year of experiences built up between them from a life where Gabe is a stranger. He knows Gabe’s season was a tough one in the same way any fan of the Avalanche does: from watching the fire hot start and the epic crash and burn that followed. But Gabe doesn’t seem heartbroken about it. If anything, he’s his regular charming and flirtatious self turned up to eleven: graciously signing autographs for guests from states that actually follow hockey, batting his eyelashes at Michiko and Steven to get extra cobbler, cooing at the babies who tug on his beard and stare up at him with eyes too large for their faces.

But it’s nothing compared to the way he’s treated EJ. Sometimes Gabe will catch his gaze across a room and look at him like nothing else exists, or he’ll sling an arm around EJ’s hips and leave it there for no apparent reason beyond an inexplicable desire to touch. When Gabe’s fingers brush the sensitive skin where EJ’s shirt rides up, EJ can’t help but jump, and Gabe laughs at the reaction every time, but he doesn’t let go.

He does it now, wrapping a hand around EJ’s wrist and letting his thumb brush absently across the tendons. EJ’s never had a boyfriend before, never even kissed the same person more than once, but this feels like something a boyfriend would do, the sort of absentminded touch that becomes more habit than intention over time.

“What are you doing?” EJ asks, trying to keep his voice low. People are getting things set up for the cowboy cookout over by the fire pit, and they could listen in if they tried hard enough. The last thing EJ needs is for someone to see them.

“The same thing I’ve always been doing,” Gabe says, and he’s trying to be nonchalant about it, but EJ has known Gabe for a long time and knows when he’s making a play. Not that he’s ever been much good at playing his cards close to his vest for anybody. Even the rookies have started asking about it.

“No,” EJ insists. Gabe’s not allowed to Jedi mind trick him into thinking he’s imagining things. “You always come in June. You play cowboy for a week and then fuck off back to your real life.”

Gabe scratches his beard and smiles sheepishly. “The same thing I’ve always wanted to be doing then.” 

“What you’ve always…” The words taste sour in the back of EJ’s throat.

“C’mon, you’ve gotta know.” Gabe hooks EJ’s pinky with his and tangles their fingers together. It’s meant to be sweet, but it feels like being trapped in a cleverly laid out snare. How would EJ have known?

They’d had one secret, silly kiss as teenagers, clumsy and so terribly young, and Gabe had grinned up at him afterward like he’d enjoyed it, but then he’d left the next day and never said anything the following year when he’d come to visit.

It had been the best thing that he pretends never happened to him. 

And here Gabe was acting the way he should have that summer after the draft when EJ had spent his first full year at the ranch counting down the days until he could kiss Gabe again. Some things were too good to happen to guys like EJ.

“I need to go make sure the rookies aren’t setting anything on fire that they shouldn’t be,” EJ says instead of any of the things he wants to like _ do you really think I’ve spent the last eight years waiting for you? _ and _ have I always been this obvious? _ The answers would be too embarrassing. “If you’re coming to the cookout you might want to get an extra layer on first. The temperature drops once it’s dark.”

Gabe drops his hand, confused, but EJ doesn’t given him the chance to say anything, slipping out of his reach and down to the campfire where he hip checks Byram, confiscates the hotdogs, and assumes roasting duty for the rest of the evening.

_/ _/ _/ _/

Paul calls him into his office midday in the unassuming way he always does: a hand on EJ's shoulder and a wordless head tilt. They’d developed a shorthand over the last decade, a way of understanding each other that was almost effortless, even when they didn’t like what the other was saying.

Gabe had gone out with Newhook that morning and hadn't been in the canteen at lunch. Not that EJ was paying attention. Gabe was just hard to miss, his laugh carrying across the chatter of the other guests.

"So you agree?" Paul asks a good twenty minutes into the meeting, and EJ's too afraid to nod since the last time he'd blindly agreed to something he'd only half heard he'd ended up in a beard and Santa suit on the roof of the barn.

There were a handful of maps on the desk between them of an unfamiliar horse ranch. A cursory glance confirmed it was probably even a better set up than here because an actual stream ran through it.

"Are you looking to buy this place?" he asks. "I definitely agree that you should buy it."

"It's already done," Paul says, and he's trying to be stern, but EJ has never been able to buy it from a man who looks like a Disney prince. "Which you'd have known five minutes ago if you weren't being selectively hard of hearing."

It was his worst habit, EJ knew, at least when it came to being an employee, but if Paul had wanted a listener, he'd have hired someone else. Instead, he'd kept EJ around, so Paul could only blame himself.

Paul pulls off his hat and smooths down the greying strands of his hair before replacing the cap. "I was just saying TK Ranch might be getting too small for you and that you might want to start thinking about moving on."

Paul’s mouth continues to move but all EJ can hear is _ moving on _behind the roar of his racing heart. Maybe Paul had finally gotten tired of all the qualities that made EJ good with the horses but so bad as his second in command. He’d taken EJ under his wing while he was still a young and malleable thing--soft and waiting to be molded just like EJ’s own rookies--but EJ was too old to change now, and maybe Paul had realized he needed to start again with someone who could.

“Did I do something wrong?” EJ feels the same way he did the first week he’d been on the job and Paul had called him into his office. He and Gabe hadn’t been exactly careful when they’d talked last night. A guest could have seen them and filed a complaint.

Paul’s face softens, his eyebrows knitting together in surprise. “Of course not.”

“Then why are you trying to make me leave?” He’d chosen this place when he was eight years old, and after Paul’s dad had died and left him the ranch, he’d chosen Paul, too. After all this time, he’d sort of thought the feeling was mutual.

“Hey.” Paul wraps his calloused hand around EJ’s wrist in an echo of Gabe last night, no less intimate, though infinitely less painful. “You have a home here as long as you want one, but I don’t want to hold you back just because I like having you around.” He squeezes EJ’s good shoulder and smiles up at him kindly. “You’re good--so good--and you could be running your own place. You should be. The way you are with the kids--all the work you put into training them just the right way to be with horses so they’ll love the animals and keep them safe--that’s how you lead.”

Even though the words are meant to build him up, EJ can’t help but wait for the drop. He squeezes his hands into fists then quickly releases them, but the tips of his fingertips still tingle.

“You’ve trained them so well that they can do the job for you,” Paul says, his voice the same one he taught EJ to use with startled horses. And there’s the drop.

“You don’t need me,” EJ echoes. He pushes back from his chair and stands. This was not what he’d been expecting Paul had wanted to talk about.

Paul stands, too, interrupting EJ’s exit with his body. “The whole point is training them so they can take over some day. What do you think I’ve been doing with you all these years?”

EJ’s chest aches. “I’m happy here,” he insists, and he means, I can’t imagine being happy anywhere else.

“He stopped coming here for the ranch a long time ago,” Paul says, and it’s a non-sequitur except for all the ways it isn’t. Except for all the ways EJ’s happiness is jumbled up with the horses and Paul’s friendship and one week in June. 

Paul tidies the maps, carefully placing them inside a thick manila envelope before handing it to EJ. “He’d follow you if you went somewhere else.”

It was just like Paul to imagine the best possible world. Even when he’d had to quit the rodeo circuit after his last bad concussion, he’d bowed out gracefully and taken to leading equine therapy instead. He found a way to make even the worst circumstances work for him, but EJ didn’t have that gift. He sees the world as it is, for better and for worse. He and Gabe were friends here because the magic of their shared childhood kept their friendship intact. Anywhere else and whatever they were would fizzle.

_/ _/ _/ _/

Almost an entire afternoon goes by without EJ’s mind accidentally slipping back to Gabe and whatever was inside Paul’s envelope. He’d picked up two extra private lessons back to back that had served as a welcome distraction, but his last lesson of the day is late, and there isn’t much else for him to do while he waits beside let his mind wander. Unfortunately Gabe chooses that exact moment to corner him in the barn.

“Are you mad at me?” he asks instead of a greeting, stalking towards EJ with fire in his eyes and a pout that looks too good on him. “Did I make you uncomfortable?”

“You didn’t make me uncomfortable, Gabe. Jesus.” He’s standing close enough now that that might be a lie. “Can we not do this now? I need to get ready for my next lesson so…”

Gabe crosses his arms across his chest. Even his forearms seem to have gotten bigger since he first arrived. “Yeah, I know. I’m your next lesson.”

Sometimes Gabe can be such a child. “You’ve been riding horses since you were a kid. You don’t need fucking lessons.”

“Well, I paid for one, so…” he shrugs, entirely unapologetic.

EJ huffs and stomps around the barn as he untethers Carlos and hands the reins to Gabe, carefully avoiding his hands.

“This isn’t my horse,” Gabe says.

“That’s right. This is Carlos,” EJ says, patting the old quarterhorse fondly. He’s feeling a bit meanspirited, but it’s only what Gabe deserves for trying to force him into a conversation. “He’s our best boy for taking the little kids out on their first ride. Since you signed up for a beginner’s lesson, you must need our beginner’s horse.”

Gabe scowls but mounts his horse anyways.

The trail is quiet while they follow along the gently sloping terrain. It’s too easy for Gabe, who’s been riding all his life, even if it wasn’t often. He takes them through the saguaro at a plodding pace that’s slow for even Carlos’ standards and responds to any of Gabe’s attempts at talking with the tips he gives his first time riders. _ Make sure you’re sitting up straight. Keep your eyes ahead and not on the horse. You’ll be able to look at him later _.

By the time they pull back to the stable, Gabe quickly clambors out of the saddle like he can’t be finished fast enough. The defeated slope of his shoulders doesn’t feel like the victory EJ thought it would. He didn’t want Gabe to feel badly. He just wanted to take the reins for once instead of constantly reacting to what Gabe wanted.

Gabe and Carlos are already to the barn by the time EJ catches up to them on horseback. Drew swoops in to help Gabe slide off the saddle and blankets, but EJ shoos him away. “I’ve got it.”

They go through the motions of cooling down the horses, nothing like the easy camaraderie of the day before. He’s not sure if it’s Gabe’s fault or his, but it’s always been easier to point the finger at himself.

When he goes to pour a bucket of water into the trough for Carlos, Gabe says, “I thought you were interested, okay?” There’s none of the certainty he’d had before. “That seemed to be where we were headed for a long time. Sorry for reading it wrong.”

It feels like more than an admission when EJ says, “You didn’t read me wrong, okay.”

He’s interested--of course he’s interested--but it’s always been in that way you’re interested in anyone who’s impossibly out of reach. Gabe doubly so because he’s EJ’s friend and could have anyone he wanted. There’d been enough rumors over the years for EJ to know he probably had.

“Then you should let me kiss you,” Gabe says. His smile is back, like he thinks a single kiss could convince EJ of anything he wanted, but EJ’s not a kid any more. He’d learned that lesson the hard way.

“You already kissed me,” he says, not bothering to hide the hurt. It was too easy to dredge up that old pain, like he’d only even managed to bury it in a shallow grave. “Or were you not just faking it when you acted like it never happened the next year?”

“That was ten years ago,” Gabe scoffs. “Am I gonna be seventeen to you forever? I don’t believe that I fucked up my chance with you just because I didn’t get it right the first time.” He tugs on EJ’s hand, and this time he goes willingly. “We owe it to our past selves to give ourselves a do-over.”

And fuck if Gabe isn’t convincing in his relentless trust in the rightness of them trying again. It’s a terrible idea. EJ hasn’t forgotten the long list of reasons this would be a bad idea that he’s kept tucked away in his brain for years, but if Gabe is so hell bent on ruining them in a permanent sort of way then they might as well let it blow up in the most spectacular fashion possible. At least Gabe won’t be able to ignore it this time.

At least EJ would know he’d been right all along.

Without really thinking it through, he yanks Gabe in by the front of his flannel and pulls him into a biting kiss. There haven’t been all that many kisses over the years, not much opportunity even with EJ only half-heartedly looking, but even he can feel the difference once Gabe’s caught on to what’s happening and adjusted the angle of his head to press his mouth more firmly against EJ’s, running his tongue along the seam of EJ’s lips until he can’t help but open up to him. This is nothing like the drunken kisses snatched in the secret corners of dark bars or even the first clumsy slide of lips that had fueled EJ’s best dreams long after he’d gotten used to the disappointment of Gabe’s indifference.

Someone probably catches them racing the half mile back to Gabe’s room, but their hands are already pulling at clothes and one button has already been lost to fingers made clumsy with desperation by the time EJ thinks about it, and even then it’s hard to care when so much of Gabe’s skin is pressed against his.

He’s imagined this, not that he’d ever have admitted to it with any kind of specificity, but he never could have imagined how right their bodies fit together, how easily they found their rhythm, no matter how temporary. EJ had always imagined that, at least, so it’s not even that hard to slink out of Gabe’s hacienda and back to his room once Gabe has fallen asleep. 

He has to be up before sunrise to get the horses ready for guests anyways.

_/ _/ _/ _/

EJ shoots up in bed when his alarm goes off at 4:30 and nearly falls off the side when he sees Gabe sitting at the foot of his bed.

“What the fuck, Gabe?” he mumbles, still slow with sleep.

“What the fuck, EJ,” Gabe parrots. “You left.” He sounds angry, but the kind of angry that wants you to prove it wrong. Only EJ can’t do that.

“I have to take care of the horses.” It’s such a ridiculous thing to say, but he doesn’t know how to articulate all of the reasons he didn’t stay and how he’s been collecting them since he was nineteen years old and building a fortress around their friendship so he couldn’t make the same mistake twice. Here he was anyways.

Gabe already seems to know the answer when he asks, “Were you gonna come back?” because he doesn’t look surprised when EJ shakes his head.

“What would be the point?”

He doesn’t mean for it to be cruel, but Gabe shrinks away anyways, pulling EJ’s blanket to his chest like a shield. “The point is that I love you.”

It’s the first time anyone has ever told him that and meant it. He never pictured it feeling as awful as this.

“This doesn’t go anywhere,” EJ says. “Our lives can’t meet in the middle.” Gabe will stick around for a few more weeks or months before hockey starts again, and EJ will still be in Arizona at the ranch like always.

“They can,” Gabe insists. He crawls up the bed and slides into the cold space beside EJ. His knees bump EJ’s above the covers.

“You gonna ask to be traded to the Coyotes?” he asks.

Gabe looks affronted. “Absolutely not.”

“So I’m supposed to what? Move to Denver? Hang around your house waiting for you to come home?” EJ wasn’t interested in being the weird childhood friend that kept trying to force himself into a place he’d never fit. Gabe’s friends back home are hockey guys--NHLers and their pretty blonde girlfriends and wives. EJ is neither of those things.

“We have horses in Denver,” Gabe argues. “You’d love the mountains and the green of the city. We even have desert if you miss it too much.” Gabe is in a rhythm now, so confident that it’s almost like watching in slow motion as he trips into the wrong argument. “Are you really going to stay here forever?”

Gabe freezes almost as soon as EJ does, trying to backpedal without realizing where he went wrong. “Go back to Denver, Gabe,” EJ says. He’s so tired, tired of feeling like he’ll never be enough for the people he cares about, tired of disappointing them because his dreams for himself aren’t big enough. “Maybe you’ve outgrown this place, but it’s my home.”

“Can’t we make a home together?” Gabe asks, voice small.

“Where?” EJ says. He’d love to know where that magical place they could both fit together year-round existed. “You can’t move here, and I can’t move to Denver. We can’t change geography.”

Gabe’s jaw hardens. “Paul told me about the place in Grant he just bought and said he wanted you to run it. It’s only an hour and a half from Denver--less the way you drive. I’m a big boy, EJ. You can just tell me you don’t want to.”

EJ flattens his mouth into a grim line. “I don’t want to,” he admits, so softly the room swallows the words, but not before they hit Gabe squarely in the chest.

_/ _/ _/ _/

Gabe’s not in the canteen for breakfast, and he doesn’t seek EJ out for their usual ride after lunch. It’s not until he finds a bent envelope shoved under his door that EJ realizes Gabe left without saying goodbye. It’s a ticket to the season opener in October and a clumsily scrawled note on paper branded with the ranch’s logo. Even Gabe’s chicken scratch grates against his tender heart, so he shoves the envelope in the back of his sock drawer with all of the other secret things he’d collected over nearly two decades of friendship and tries to forget about it.

And it’s fine. It has to be. They aren’t eighteen any more, and there are no more do-overs. He hopes it was worth it for both of them.

His rookies can tell something isn’t right, but they’re all too scared to ask about it, and EJ would be lying if he said he wasn’t relieved. The disappointment on Paul’s face every time they crossed paths was enough to deal with.

A few weeks pass, and they don’t say anything, so he figures they’ve dropped it. Only when Sam traps him after one of the equine therapy sessions where they let the kids draw on the horses with chalk does he realize his mistake. “You’re not happy,” he points out. “The boys worry.”

They don’t look all that worried from where EJ’s standing. Cale rinses the horses with the shower hose while Alex and Byram follow with the shampoo. They look competent with the horses, grinning and chirping each other while they work. He tries to find something he’d do differently, but there’s nothing to fix. There hasn’t been in awhile, at least not anything Sam wouldn’t notice right away.

They don’t need him anymore, and that’s a sad sort of pride, watching them thrive without him.

“You can tell them they don’t need to worry,” EJ says. “I’m fine.”

“It’s okay if you are not,” Sam says.

“I will be.” And that’s the same thing, really.

He would be fine, just like Sam would be if EJ left him with the responsibility of training the new rookies. They would all survive without him; Paul had been right about that. EJ just isn’t sure he’d survive them not needing him.

_/ _/ _/ _/

The note is still in the back of his drawer when he digs it out a few days later. His hands shake while he unfolds it, and he shouldn’t feel so nervous opening a letter that belongs to him, but it feels elicit somehow, as if he’d waited so long that it wasn't his anymore. The ticket was there, too, along with a decade worth of other home openers he’d never been to, so he’s not really surprised when Gabe opens with an invitation.

_ Maybe I should get the hint and quit asking, but the guys want to meet you, and I want to show you a place I love as much as you love the ranch. I want you to know me in the place I’m most myself just like I get to know you here. It doesn’t have to be anything. It’s just that every time something important happens I look for you, and I want to be able to find you more than one week out of the year _.

This time, EJ doesn’t wait, he calls Gabe, not worrying about time zones or whether he might be busy. “You left,” he accuses before Gabe can get anything more than a courtesy “hello” out.

“I did,” Gabe admits. “Apparently I don’t deal with rejection very well. Not my best look.”

Not a lot of what EJ had done those last few days they’d spent together had been a particularly good look either, so he can’t really hold it against him, at least not completely.

“Did you mean it? About coming to the game?” he clarifies because there are a whole lot of things Gabe had said that EJ isn’t sure he’s ready to know if Gabe really means.

He can hear Gabe smile through the phone line, the click of his tongue against the roof of his mouth as he swallows back his rashest answer. “I’ve meant it every time I’ve asked.”

EJ knows what comes next, but it’s embarrassing to ask, so he hesitates. Asking probably proves his own point. Still, if he wants to salvage his friendship with Gabe, he has to ask the embarrassing questions, has to risk making himself look foolish in front of Gabe and his friends. “What if they think I’m some backwards hick who doesn’t know anything and I make an ass of myself in your fancy fucking city life? Clearly I do it well enough in my own damn home.”

He pictures a version of himself like Cale had been at the start of the season, walking in with brand new boots that made his feet bleed, looking the part if only to anyone who didn’t know better. Cale’s boots had finally broken in a few weeks ago, and even the ridiculous cowboy hat he insists on wearing has started to fit like it belongs on him instead of on the shelf of some box store. Becoming competent took time.

Gabe laughs, and that, at least, feels like a success. “What do you think I do in Denver?”

But EJ isn’t finished. He has a laundry list of fears he’s spent a decade collecting, and he doesn’t need real answers, just needs to know Gabe won’t mind that he has them. “What if the guys don’t like me?”

“Of course they’re gonna like you,” Gabe says. “I’m the captain. They like what I tell them to.”

It’s not the last phone call of the summer, but it’s the start of something, a special kind of cartography worked out over sleepy skype calls and a steady stream of text messages that almost has EJ convinced they can overcome geography by sheer force of will.

_/ _/ _/ _/

Denver is nothing like he expected, green and sharp and so much vaster than anything EJ has seen up close. From the time he shows up on Gabe’s front porch, Gabe can’t stop touching him, this look of complete awe overwhelming his face. When EJ asks about it, Gabe shrugs. “I just can’t believe you’re finally here.”

How much he likes seeing Gabe in his element sideswipes him a little. He’s himself in a way he isn’t at the ranch and blossoms under the responsibility of leading his team. This Gabe who takes the new guys to lunch to make sure they’re settling in and calls the veterans to see if they need anything before they get back into town is a revelation, a new piece of Gabe to fall in love with.

He throws a team party the week before the regular season starts, and it’s loud and bright and so many bodies in Gabe’s loft that it’s probably a fire hazard, but it’s also obvious why Gabe considers them family. Tyson is a bonafide idiot that EJ likes from the moment he shoves an entire fistfull of hot cheetos into his mouth in order to shake EJ’s hand. The rest of his friends are pretty fucking cool too.

“You good?” Gabe asks, placing feather light hands at EJ’s hips like he’s not quite sure how they’ll be received, even in the privacy of his own kitchen.

“Totally,” EJ grins, and Gabe let’s his hands settle, returning EJ’s smile. Before he’d come up, they’d talked about what EJ visiting him would mean, and while Gabe had said it didn’t have to mean anything besides friends, EJ isn’t interested in pretending it isn’t what it is. 

EJ tilts his head down a little, and Gabe reads him from a mile off, standing on tiptoe to meet him the rest of the way for a kiss, soft and nothing that was trying to go anywhere, just a brief press of lips against Gabe’s countertops like a promise of all the things to come.

_/ _/ _/ _/

He borrows Gabe’s car on a Wednesday when Gabe has practice and drives out to Grant. The photos the broker had taken don’t do justice to the property. It’s beautiful, a fresh slate waiting for someone to build it up. It wasn’t home, not yet, but it could become one. It was worth giving it a shot at least.

**Author's Note:**

> You may be asking why the Avs didn’t make it this year and well...no EJ means no game 81 OT goal, so I’m choosing to believe EJ was vital to their playoff run.


End file.
